


Dead Cthulhu Lies Dreaming

by orphan_account



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Diary/Journal, Entering Dreams, Gen, H.P. Lovecraft Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 23:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The paper was found in a deep recess of the earth, a cave located near ████, a suburban town in ██████, at least 3.486 kilometres beneath the surface. The tunnel in which it was found extended beyond visible sight. No further exploration has been made, and exploration is unlikely to continue.<br/>--<br/>The King of Nightmares has entered dreams before, but never, never like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Cthulhu Lies Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> This was also written for the kinkmeme, and I should really stop. Done in the style of The Abyss Gazed Back. (i'm sorry, i whisper into the wind)

_[The paper was found in a deep recess of the earth, a cave located near ████, a suburban town in ██████, at least 3.486 kilometres beneath the surface. The tunnel in which it was found extended beyond visible sight. No further exploration has been made, and exploration is unlikely to continue._

_The clipping from the journal is tattered, written on yellowing paper smattered with splashes of ink. The writing is elegant, as if the author had been trained in penmanship from ages long ago, yet there is a strange quality to it, how light the strokes are, the occasional stroke that runs off the page entirely. It is the quality of a writer distracted. The contents are as follows:]_

Celestial Era 394, 2.11.38.20.9

The calendar in the room was an odd thing, a sizable sheet of paper on the wall, two sheets from its stack ripped off, and its surface the image of a woman in a fur shawl, yet it fulfills its purpose all the same, and as such, tells me it is the year Nineteen-Hundred-And-Twenty-Five Anno Domini, according to the mortal timekeeping. The moon-cycle is almost at one full quarter, and the lack of watchful eyes upon my domain increases my power, as per usual, yet they are still there, the watchful eyes, as the Moon always watches, until his back is turned and I may seize the hearts of men. March First, it says. Almost one moon until the time of Hope, and when the moon is at waning crescent his power will begin to rise. Yet I grow ever stronger; the strifes of men, what, with their paranoia and fear, they feed me.

It is in the Northeast of what I believe to be a new country, being less than two hundred earth-rotations in age. The city is the capital of a small territory and sits comfortably by a bay and the mouth of a river.

The man is relatively young, having survived approximately 20 earth-rotations, thin, dark of hair. Appearance has never kept my attention, though, for it is his mind which intrigues me, a twisted thing described only as neurotic, but genius, precocious yet eccentrically queer, to which he calls ‘physically hypersensitive’ and leaves it at that. Not often is it that I follow a child from their venerable times to their adulthood, but there have always been exceptions: veterans, victims, the deranged. I do not call upon these diseases, no, I do not create ills of the mind; I merely prey on them as per the fashion of a lion upon an injured gazelle. The man does not speak to others, preferring to keep to himself, keeping on the borderline of social visibility despite his apparently well-known family. He goes by the name of Henry Anthony Wilcox, but the name is meaningless as a word whispered into the winds. His mind is the treasure, and in its wake, the person is meaningless.

It is his dreams, the dreams which whisper of worlds older than Babylon or brooding Tyre, of cities which spiral and capture the senses, the dreams which ooze such reality that they seem not to be dreams at all.

For as he entered them, these dreams which shook his mind and stirred his senses, so did I.

And there, in the Cyclopean cities by miles of far-flung waters, I found myself.

I have seen what no eyes should see. The realm was not my own, not any realm known to the minds of mortal and immortal alike.

The steps in the mighty acropolis are of which no steps I have ever seen, the very nature of the shapes, the very geometry of the stones distorted to shapes no creature is familiar, the very feeling, the aura itself of the place so very very wrong. Even the sun, looming over the sky with such red brightness, seems alien. The city is made of spiraling towers and sky-flung monoliths and jagged edge and black stone, all oozing with the same corruptive fluid, a poison, absthine green which seeps from the very mortar, condensing on the black rock like slime. Yet still, plantlife grows, but plantlife odd and unusual, husky cylinders and odd mushrooms, glowing bells of iridescent flowers, a spindly root which seems to sing, grass of sanguine color. I knew not what propelled me forward through the mighty city, only that I walked, only that I followed blindly what force which led me.

The door I came to was monstrous, carved intricately with all sorts of odd runes and pictographs, a single figure dominating the lot, and I will not be gentle when I describe it, for it plagues even my mind to think of its true and terrible form. It is parts squid, parts man, parts dragon, combined into a creature grotesque to the eye and poison to the mind. The head is monstrous and pulpy, a spiny skull fading into a large maw bearded with tentacles- or, perhaps, the tentacles are the maw? I could not look long enough to tell fully. Its anatomy seems that of a man, despite the head surmounting it, but at that a twisted mockery of man, large and scaly, with claws and spines and great wings, like those of a bat’s. Even now, it sickens me to think of it.

I cannot fathom why I would have entered that building at the steepest door on at the tallest tower, only that I did.

The tower seemed so very thin, so very small, yet internally it sprawled for miles, deep under the surface of the ground despite its highness in stature. The darkness within was almost palpable, but even to I, lord of shadow and terror, it was unnerving, but not so much as what it obscured. I am thankful for the darkness, for had I seen what it hides, I may have never left.

In the darkness, a green-robed priest whose features were obscured turned to me. In that instant, he knew what I was, who I was. He knew what power I wield and he knew how to disable it just so, and I was helpless as he neared.

The voice he spoke in was not corporeal, but echoing throughout the darkness.

_’Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.’_

And my eyes were opened to the darkness where I saw the beast, its great golden eyes sparking such pain that for few moments, my soul and body separated.

The voices doubled, then, surrounding me, the cries of a thousand men.

_‘Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn! Cthulhu Fhtagn! Cthulhu Fhtagn!’_

In that moment, the world was gold and sickly green and there was nothing but the beast and I, and it spoke in a language long forgotten, the cosmic turning of the stars, the sound of the heavens.

It said:

_That is not dead which can eternal lie,  
And with strange aeons even death may die._

My world was darkness. Then I woke.

**Author's Note:**

> Some choice phrases were lifted (accidentally) from the original _Call of Cthulhu,_ but I like to think that, in the case of this story, that Pitch influenced the speaker into using them. (Also it is really hard to write like Lovecraft, so i used them as a crutch i'm sorry)


End file.
